How Texas can show the path to energy wealth

The recent announcement that Microsoft will help restart nuclear power on Three Mile Island was rightly celebrated. It signals the importance of nuclear energy for our future. The era of pessimism and unscientific fears about nuclear power is coming to an end.

However, not everything it suggests is positive. The biggest downside is the realization that it is still easier to reopen a plant than to build a new plant from scratch. Given this, the move is more about fixing past mistakes than building a high-energy future. We should strive for more. And that means tackling the red tape that chokes off every source of energy.

Microsoft’s nuclear move represents an attempt to meet the challenge of rising demand. Until a few years ago, the electricity world was in a doldrums of slow to no growth. Today, companies in the industry are concerned about meeting the demands of artificial intelligence and data centers. “Load growth,” to use the industry term, concerns every utility manager.

It is unfortunate that this emphasis on the coming demands on the power grid has been one-sided. It aroused fear without providing a direction of action and response. This is because there has been a focus on demand forecasting without considering latent supply.

The AI ​​forecasts that caused a stir earlier this year predicted an additional peak demand of around 35 GW by 2028. It turns out that the number of potential generators is even larger – much larger. The latest estimates from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory suggest that 2,600 GW of capacity is mired in bureaucracy.

However, very little of this reaches the internet via the network process. If the past is the foreplay, only a little more than a tenth of that capacity will make it. That’s still 260 GW and about seven times the forecast AI demand of 35 GW.

This means that there is no shortage of methods and options for generating electricity. Instead, we lack proper connection processes. We need to make it easy and quick to connect and sell electricity.

Only Texas shines here. The state’s focus on a pure energy market simplifies the interconnection process. Because of this, interconnection schedules are being extended by years everywhere except the Lone Star State. In fact, schedules have grown to the point where Texas carriers are ready in about half the time it takes others.

The accolades continue for Texas. The state’s grid operator connected twice as much electricity as a larger grid between 2021 and 2023. When it comes to large solar installations, Texas, not California, is the leader. In the incredibly warm summer there were no emergencies, even if the air conditioning stopped working. All of these successes show a state that quickly recovered from the 2021 winter storm and is moving toward a brighter future.

Texas is a model that more states and network operators should emulate. Even the nuclear deal between Microsoft and Constellation is in jeopardy. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro made a special appeal to grid operators to move forward more quickly on the Three Mile Island project. PJM, the grid operator in Pennsylvania and 12 other states, has not accepted new applications since 2021. Constellation’s current expectations are that the review will begin in 2026 and be completed in 2028.

Harnessing the power of the stars and building the AI ​​technologies of science fiction may have to wait until we complete the paperwork.

No generator should need a governor asking the grid’s gatekeepers for special treatment. Such events are evidence of a failing system in need of deep reform. Energy is essential and we need a steady and secure supply to support industry and innovation. This will only be possible once the bureaucratic burden on approval and interconnection processes is reduced.

Josh T Smith is the director of energy policy at the Abundance Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on emerging technologies. He writes to Propulsion for spaceship Earth.

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